From the Institute of Development Studies
‘Green’ market initiatives are increasing poverty; local ecosystem stewardship must be nurtured instead
‘Green grabbing’ – the rapidly-growing appropriation of land and resources in the name of ‘green ‘ biofuels, carbon offsetting schemes, conservation efforts and eco-tourism initiatives – is forcing people from their homelands and increasing poverty, new research has found.
Ecosystems being ‘asset-stripped’ for profit is likely to cause dispossession and further poverty amongst already-poor land and resource users, according to a set of 17 new research case studies from Africa, Asia and Latin America, published in a special issue of the Journal of Peasant Studies.
“Green grabs are the dark side of the green economy,” said Professor Melissa Leach, director of the ESRC STEPS Centre. “If market-based mechanisms are to contribute to sustainable development and the building of economies that are not only green but also fair, then fostering an agenda focused on distribution, equity and justice in green market arrangements is vital.”
This means including meaningful local engagement and consultation based on transparency, accountability and free, prior informed consent. Yet green markets cannot do it all. In the rush to repair a damaged nature through trading and offset schemes, the political-economic structures that caused the damage in the first place must not be neglected.
Responsibility for tackling unsustainable practices in wealthy industrialised settings should not be offloaded by financialising ecosystems in other parts of the world. And if sustainable development is genuinely to be pursued at Rio+20 and beyond, we need to recapture nature from the market’s grasp, nurturing and legitimising more interconnected human-ecological relationships and understandings, along with tried-and-tested forms of local ecosystem stewardship based on them.
Examples of green grabs include: in Guatemala, conservation agencies, ecotourism companies and the military are ‘protecting’ the Guatemalan Maya Biosphere Reserve as a ‘Maya-themed vacationland’, violently excluding local people. In Eastern and Southern Africa, businesses are revaluing soil systems and farming practices for ‘biochar’, dispossessing farmers and pastoralists from land and resources important for their livelihoods. Meanwhile evidence is mounting that some Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD and REDD+) schemes are dispossessing local forest users of vital resource access.
No surprise but a sad reality.
Anthony, WUWT proves that “investigative journalism” has a new home, the premier blogosphere. I look forward to the time that these kinds of efforts stop the money flow to science-fraudsters. At least most of the “climate” conferences have been a big FAIL; Rio must be as well Perhaps we will see funding collapse after November.
These must be the “climate refugees” we’ve heard so much about, caused, ironically enough, not by “climate change” but rather by climate hysteria and Big Green.
The Green movement is more like the Soviet system and Stalin. No suprises there! But “financialising”? Is that even a word?
[SNIP: Thank you, but that is why we have a tips and notes page. -REP]
If the general public heard some of the horror stories arising from green money making schemes like the UN and World Bank backed REDD program, they’d be outraged. But the media refuses to report any of it. Almost no one in N America has even heard of the REDD programs and don’t know a thing about them.
You can tell if something is a UN idea because it always has an awkward acronym like IPCC or FCCC, in this case it’s REDD. And UN plans are almost always so complex and convoluted they are difficult to understand. I think that’s part of the reason the media does not report them, their journalists cannot understand how they work.
I used to be a proponent of the UN, now I despise it.
REDD and other greenie money grabbing schemes must end. The sooner the better.
Guess I’m glad that they see greed in green, but I keep gagging on their devotional green snippets anyway. Green economy is the dark side of the economy. Still, I’m thinking there is a probability that Mr. Gore is largely focused on the projects they are objecting too.
Bottom line about the religion even noting a few obvious cases of green looting is that you can never be geen enough.
I’ve long suspected that the most extreme greens are motivated more by misanthropy – hatred of Man – than by love of nature. The AGW faith is a godsend to them, legitimising their antidevelopment agenda and, as with any faith, is immune to scepticism – a key element of the scientific method.
Correction — One MORE dark side of the green economy.
when you sort through all this eco bafflegab, what it says is people need property rights.
So their “solution” is outright communism. Ever get the feeling that this is all a “good cop bad cop” routine?
You can thank people like Chico State’s Scott McNall, who used the city of Chico’s RECO program to get into people’s homes and then sell their private lifestyle information to interested parties.
For decades, most of what I read about local forest peoples losing their land had to do with things like logging (for example, Chinese companies doing a deal with a corrupt government, then tearing down the forests in which people lived), or ranching (same thing, except ranchers burn the trees instead of logging them, to grow grasses for cattle). I found myself siding with the people who lived in the forests. Groups like Conservation International help local people who want to keep their forested homes get the needed publicity so that, in Brazil for example, ranchers can’t take their land illegally and burn the forests.
Biofuel plantations are the same destructive thing, taking land from people who live there and depend on the forest. The only difference is that it is done for a “green” purpose, although most studies I’ve now read say that tearing down forests for biofuels in fact is NOT green, it results in MORE CO2 emissions, when deforestation is taken into account, not less. To me, biofuels plantations are just major international firms hiding under the “green” label, but just as destructive of cultures and forests as the international logging companies. I actually think that the EU and the UN got the wool pulled over their eyes by these firms, and only after the mechanisms for biofuel plantations got set up, did they discover, too late, that green wasn’t (in the case of biofuels) green at all.
If governments are now kicking people off their land for ecotourism, that’s crazy, and needs to stop. One of the main draws of ecotourism in most places is that it gives higher paying jobs to locals, so ecotourism becomes a way to help retain forests, and to give governments an incentive to do so, because it brings in dollars. In most places, the governments work with ecotourism companies and with the local residents, and it’s a win/win for everyone.
The enviro movement started with many admirable ideals and goals. Those lofty puropses seem to have become more and more displaced by some very ugly techniques and goals.
@Vince Causey – “The Green movement is more like the Soviet system and Stalin.”. Not so much like, but exactly like.
Instead of selling the populace the dream of a coming Worker’s Utopia, sell them the vision of getting back to some equally mythical Garden of Eden. Instead of telling them they had to fight Capitalism or be exploited by it, tell them that they had to fight Capitalism, because it was destroying the Earth. Instead of telling them that individual liberty had to be sacrificed in the greater interest of the state, tell them it had to be minutely controlled in the greater interest of the environment.
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2012/06/08/how-environmentalism-turned-to-the-dark-side/
Pointman
Thanks for bringing this stuff to light.
http://suyts.wordpress.com/2011/09/25/by-their-fruit-you-will-recognize-them/
http://www.euractiv.com/climate-environment/carbon-credits-tarnished-human-r-news-508068
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/14/kenya-samburu-people-evicted-land
Three different stories, and, yet, three stories which are the same. I believe Anthony covered one of the stories here. I think if we look hard enough, we’d find many more stories, just like these stories.
ChE says:
June 15, 2012 at 8:02 am
So their “solution” is outright communism. Ever get the feeling that this is all a “good cop bad cop” routine?
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It is Diocletian’s Problem-Reaction-Solution.
We see it over and over.
Create “The Problem”, have the media hype “The Problem” so the public reacts and then offer “The Solution” that is ALWAYS a transfer of Power and Wealth to the ever expanding bureaucracy. The name of the “Solution” changes – “Free Markets” “Socialism” “Communism” “Communitarianism” the name of the front men (politicians) changes but the families behind the mess have not changed in a couple of centuries. All that has changed is they are reaching their goal, a World Government run by bureaucrats they control. Most recently it is called “Global Governance” The European Union and the Soviet Union were test cases I think. That is why the Soviet Union was suddenly allowed to collapse and China was drawn into the WTO.
Check out the London School of Economics and the “Third Way” front men like Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, George Soros, Maurice Strong and Pascal Lamy.
Wasn’t there a little, African boy burned to death in his home, when the Green Greed decided the villagers were “squatters?”
What words begin with G-R-E-E? Greed, green, and, oh yes, Greece.
Apparently in Athens there are nearly a half million people more than three months behind on their electricity bills, and the utility has some big bond payment due. Wonder whether the richer investors will have to wait, or the poorer people will all have their power shut off?
Expect riots, and fools proposing more wind turbines.
ISIB-ISIG. Even if all the AGW alarmism were true,. The cure is far worse than the disease.
Home wind-turbine: “He expects the structure will cost about $25,000 to build – an amount that would take about 100 years of energy bill savings to pay for – but his company prides itself on thinking progressively about power consumption.” http://www.ctvbc.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20120614/bc_west_side_vancouver_turbine_120614/20120614
The thing that turned me against this type of stuff was when I started hearing stories of parks & natural forests being torn down to make way for wind turbines & solar panels.
Parks, natural forests, & clean water always come first in a sound environmental ethic. The more sound environmental movement of the past has been sabotaged by naivety-based & deception-based climate alarmism.
The sensible thing to do is support parks & natural forests while opposing toxic pollution. Naive leadership is weak & naturally unsustainable. I advise any remaining sensible members of the environmental movement to think long, hard, & carefully about the following & implications:
http://judithcurry.com/2012/06/10/psychology-of-uncertainty/#comment-209253
Regards.
Same kind of land grab happening here in Ontario, Canada. The leftist provincial government has the authority to build industrial wind powered electrical generation sites anywhere they want to, and local input is not accepted.
This reminds of another green grab. In North Carolina, the Cape Hatteras National Seashore is a designated national recreation center, not a national park but it is managed by the National Park Service. Since it became a national seashore, people have been able to drive their trucks on the beach. Some of my fondest memories are driving on the beach. Quite often, people would drive their truck on the beach, park near the water, hope you don’t get stuck, and start fishing. Even if you didn’t fish, you could drive on the beach and have a small gathering. A picnic by the waters is something special. Then the greens got involved.
Several years back, they sued to block people from driving on the beach to protect nesting sea turtles. Never mind the people who drove on the beach already respected the sea turtles, the greens wanted to stop us from driving on the beach. So they sued. An activist judge closed down all beaches until a plan was implemented. Eventually, some beaches were opened up, but not the best and most popular ones. That left us with only a few driving beaches, and none of the prettiest ones. But that wasn’t good enough. Now you have to buy a permit to drive on the beach. $50 for a week permit, $120 for a year. This is a money grab, because there is no maintenance for shifting sand and the lighthouse already charges a fee to climb. Granted, it does cost money to maintain highway 12, but the state does that, not the feds. And now you need to hire some park rangers to enforce the beach permits. (source: http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/10736099/ )
Thankfully, the senators in this state are angry about this even though one is a republican and the other a democrat. I hope S.2372 passes. I am still angry about this.
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/s2372
Gail-I never track a comprehensive scheme involving the environment/economy/education nexus where at some point the report doesn’t stop and describe how to get the media on board. One of the most memorable asked for a dining budget as it said top media officials like being taken to fine restaurants.
I was just off downloading getting ready to outline the next part of my stories on the Belmont Challenge and related initiatives. Once I mention something links go down. These fools are not only describing getting rid of fossil fuels. They are literally describing the self-sufficiency economics of autarky without a real sense of the consequences of what they are proposing. And talking about going back to earlier more labor-intensive, now displaced, forms of technology.
Because windmills are so cute?
Robin says:
June 15, 2012 at 10:16 am
Gail-I never track a comprehensive scheme involving the environment/economy/education nexus where at some point the report doesn’t stop and describe how to get the media on board….
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Robin, As far as I can tell the whole scheme of Agenda 21/ “Third Way”/ Wildlands- UN Biodiversity Project is to return to a cross between feudalism and the “company town”
Humans will be herded into “Smart Growth” communities. By making energy very expense, home ownership and transportation will be unknown to any but the top strata. Roads will be abandoned/torn-up and sections between “Grow Smart” communities will be limited access farms or no access wilderness. Sounds like a feudal estate/company town doesn’t it? You will be stuck in the community for the rest of your life unless the “Company” needs you elsewhere. If you tick-off the movers and shakers you are done for, you can not leave . You can not even stick out a thumb and hitch to another town. With Grope-n-Fly and the “No Fly List” we are already seeing the start of this restriction on travel.
More and More Regulations will make it impossible to own a small business. I have seen the creeping consolidation over my live. A woman can no longer open a business baking cookies, baby-sitting, cleaning homes, or even braiding hair without running into government regs and insurance hassles. Farming was the last unregulated business in the USA and Congress slammed the door on that in December 2010. Soon even home gardens will be regulated. Heck you can not give meat cheese or milk to your own family members without the USDA/FDA screaming bloody murder
Think I am nuts? Rosa Koire who works for California on Eminent Domain seizures spells it out http://www.democratsagainstunagenda21.com/ (the video is excellent)
Gail-someone who knows me who lives in California heard Rosa speak. She described her as doing for Agenda 21 what I was doing on education. She brought ICLEI to my attention. In one of the UN reports I read within last few months ans a Green Economy report I downloaded this morning there are repeated references to Agenda 21. It’s not a conspiracy or a rumor or a point of embarassment. It’s a tool and they are relying on it and their control over local school boards through accreditation to get the local control UN officials tout.
In fact they argue only they can manage the global economy in this new economy they plan to foist on us in the name of sustainable development. Where we will be treated as the funding serfs who need to be guided and directed. Preferably without it being so obvious. Anyway, they argue no one else has local, national, regional, and global influence.
Remember sometimes conspiracies do exist. In this area there are lots of declarations of this is what I am doing and why. And this is who I am working with. We can call it a group coordinating around a common purpose. It’s especially common when the people get to live at our expense as they push their programs and only if they push those programs. It’s also very common to preserve current political or economic power. Especially both. Neither politicians or established businesses like creative destruction. Genuine innovation may displace the existing market of a crony.
And then who would loan you a jet or Masters tickets when you feel the urge to get away?
Those green fists instantly reminded me of one thing: HULK SMASH!!!!
which is what the greens do to anything they touch, of course.
When the suffering gets worse they’ll blame it on global warming instead of themselves.
The ‘Green Grab’ has been done before as any Scot will tell you – the Highland Clearances were just the same as is going on in Africa and other countries now. Tenant farmers and villages being burned to the ground and the population thrown off the land to be replaced by sheep. If you go to Caithness and Sutherland you can still see the foundations and dry stone walls of burned out villages in the glens around the lakes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_Clearances
Then it was the lairds and the feudal land owners, now the same type of clearances are sanctioned by an alliance of Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund, big business and the UN. Are there people proud to be ‘Green’?
Robin says:
June 15, 2012 at 12:32 pm
Gail-someone who knows me who lives in California heard Rosa speak. She described her as doing for Agenda 21 what I was doing on education. She brought ICLEI to my attention…..
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The “Green Grab” is all encompassing and certainly includes education too. Actually gaining control of education was the first step. The London School of Economics turns out many of the worlds politicians, bankers and corporate leaders.
Harold Laski, a disciple of the Webbs who founded the London School of Economics and the British Fabien Society, founded the ACLU along with his American Fabian influenced associates Felix Frankfurter, Norman Thomas and John Dewey. Dewey was a charter member of the American Fabian Society link
One can see the evolution of Shaw’s ideas along with those of John Dewey in the college textbook written by Obama’s Science Czar, with his co-author’s the Ehrlichs. The same threesome who wrote a later book including “de-develop of the United States”
From chapter 8 page 235 of the ‘Human Ecology’ (1973)
What is also very interesting is US universities in Africa ‘land grab’ It seems institutions including Harvard and Vanderbilt are using hedge funds to buy land in deals that force farmers out. Harvard is declining to comment
So the detour into education is not a detour at all but the closing of the circle. Then again anyone reading WUWT for any length of time knows universities have been front and center in this whole mess from the beginning. It is just interesting to follow the string back in time.
I forgot to add to the above George Bernard Shaw along the Webbs founded the Fabian Society as well as the London School of Economics.
No it’s not a detour. And there never was actually a dispute over how to teach reading. Just a desire to avoid the inevitable effects on a mind that can read phonetically.
You might find this link interesting: http://www.climateprosperityinc.org/media/TowardsANewProsperity_2011.pdf on these regional partnerships and how the businesses are addicted to the public money.
Don’t you just love it these days when someone suggests the whole distinction between public and private needs to be eliminated?
What in favor of the politically connected and how they want to use our money?
John Dewey is an excellent example of how you can remain famous for over a century if your ideas are bad. And unbeknownst to most people tied to notorious ideas that have had their tragic implementation. Back way in. Same likely result.
Didn’t we go through this before? EVERYONE wants control; it is an urge to be fought individually, to allow others around you (including ‘the one you love’) to be FREE and make their own choices …
As mentioned before, one sees it in exhibited in children in the family (notably older siblings in their assertion of ‘authority’ over younger); it is not a new phenom. It would seem that would be where your efforts should be directed (in the form of an educational effort) as opposed to fighting ‘select’ c o n_spiracy t h_eories involving such as Dewey (cited above) and others.
My US $.02 in any case.
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There’s “Green Grab” right here in the good ol’ US of A. Aided and abetted by Obama and his henchmen and henchwomen, chief among them is a certain EPA executive. Just slightly different tactics is all, and aimed at excluding valuable resources from development.
Ian W says:
June 15, 2012 at 1:39 pm
The ‘Green Grab’ has been done before as any Scot will tell you – the Highland Clearances were just the same as is going on in Africa and other countries now…..
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DARN RIGHT and some of the same families involved in the Highland Clearances (Rothschild) are going to make $$$$ this time round too. The problem is there is no “New World” for those tossed off their land to move to and it is ALL the land that is the target this time.
There are two halves to the land grab. The “Green Grab” in third world countries and the World Trade Organization Agreement on Agriculture for all countries. New Ag regulations, removal of tarriffs and farm subsidies, monospony, sale of GMOs, bankruptcies, fines, bribes to bureaucrats and outright theft of the land. Every possible weapon is being used to acquire the world’s farmland short of overt war.
I have seen it coming for years. But everyone looks down on farmers and calls them ignorant “Hay Seeds” and “Red Necks” an idea that was also promoted by propaganda in the mass media
“The Socialist Revolution in the US cannot take place because there are too many small independent farmers there. Those people are the stability factor. We here in Russia must hurry while our government is stupid enough to not encourage and support the independent farmership.’ V. Lenin, the founder of the Russian revolution”
Quote provided by Anna Fisher
(Earth Day, April 23, is is the birthday of Valdimir Illych Lenin)
1932 to 1937 “The Collective Farm Policy was a terrible struggle, Ten million died. It was fearful. Four years it lasted. It was absolutely necessary.” Joseph Stalin http://www.faminegenocide.com/resources/quotes.html
1934, “[Our] future is becoming visible in Russia.” Assistant Secretary of Agriculture Rexford Tugwell http://www.archive.org/stream/rednetworkwhoswh00dillrich/rednetworkwhoswh00dillrich_djvu.txt
September 1995, Catherine Bertini, Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Program, and former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Agriculture, stated “Food is power. We use it to change behavior. Some may call that bribery. We do not apologize.” UN’s 4th World Conference on Women: Beijing, China. http://ngin.tripod.com/280702c.htm
This is a better link to the study.
http://www.ids.ac.uk/news/appropriating-nature-green-grabbing
Jim- I started looking at Dewey because one of the primary architects of most of what has gone on in education over the last 20 years that has worked so poorly said that with Common Core “we would finally realize Dewey’s dream for education.” So I decided to see what his dream was. I had been trying to reconcile the language of the regs and the PR campaign because they were about 180 degrees apart.
I do agree it is fundamentally about power. Unfortunately with education the people wanting power or just doing what someone wants get to live off our property taxes for starters. And they know if they can make education largely about emotional responses through middle school, the adult will be limited for life. It’s a reflex.
And there are entire conferences devoted to finally fulfilling Dewey’s dream for education. Hard to get the list of attendees though as it was higher ed. And the indebted students would probably be upset if they saw that program.
If they actually declare for the record what they are up to, let’s call it a coordinated cabal so no one claims we are just theorizing.
Article make Hulk sad.
Australian PM Gillard is attending the RIO+20 fraud and is giving a 90 min speach on how she will destroy Australia in the name of saving us from ourselves, please keep a eye on her speach and you will see what we Austranians have for a PM
_Jim says: @ June 15, 2012 at 3:00 pm
Didn’t we go through this before? EVERYONE wants control; it is an urge to be fought individually, to allow others around you (including ‘the one you love’) to be FREE and make their own choices …
…… It would seem that would be where your efforts should be directed (in the form of an educational effort) as opposed to fighting ‘select’ c o n_spiracy t h_eories involving such as Dewey (cited above) and others.
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Good Grief of course it is a typical human trait. Heck most of human history is a history of slavery, serfdom and war. The other important human drive is to produce a genetic legacy. Genghis Khan is the classic case. It has been hypothesized that about 16 million people have some of his genetic make up. – Kill the men and rape the women….
Combine these two traits and you have Monarchies, Aristocracies and various versions of feudalism. A republic or constitutional monarchy, where most people are “free” is a relatively modern creation and directly hinges on cheap energy and the mechanical devices that allow leisure and a decent live style without a serf/slave class.
The interesting twist in recent centuries is the long term goal and cooperation between certain families to accomplish what Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, and Napoleon could not. World domination. They are smart enough to work behind the scenes so they are never directly linked to anything. “Democracies” where politicians can be bought is therefore a very useful tool.
The goal of course is a stable world government where “They” (Their families) are solidly in control and do not have to “waste” time and energy on politics and propaganda. They are not “Capitalists” or “Marxists” or “Socialists” or “Fabians” or “Keynesians” I doubt they give a hoot about any of that garbage they dream up and feed to the “Great Unwashed” The different philosophies/economic models are just a replacement for religion which was used for mind control during previous centuries. I am not crazy and I did not dream this up on my own. You can blame President Clinton’s Mentor, Carroll Quigley http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/1199quigley.htm
Fabianism, Communism, Socialism and now the newest modification the “Third Way” or Communitarianism all have one thing in common, the removal of individual rights and the return of those rights to the state. Communitarianism seems to be an unholy mix of Marxism and “Capitalism” Except of course Capitalism STARTS with the individuals right to own property so it is actually Neo-Corporatism. More important it seems to be the basis for Agenda 21 and Global Governance. link That is why I bring up the Fabians and LSE who originated and promote the mess and train world leaders. It does no good to chop off a few tentacles, we need to see who and where the ideas actually come from.
UK Politics: What is the Third Way? ~ Tony Blair has committed his government to treading the Third Way. Both US President Bill Clinton and German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder espouse the same doctrine.
USA “Third Way” http://www.thirdway.org/about_us
Description of “Third Way” http://fiveboxes.com/more.php/2010/10/30/communitarianism-the-third-way-the-key-to-understanding-obama-world-events-and-whats-coming-next/
@Gail Combs says:
Excellent and infromative posts.
REDD is a huge land grab with names like Strong and Clinton heavily promoting the concept. The war on terror has been used as an excuse to strip away the personal rights of law abiding individuals. Yet more people are die every day of stress working to pay their taxes than have ever been killed by terrorists.
Under the current disastrous minority regime of the Gillard Government here in Australia Big Green is enjoying a free hand to trash our economy under the guise of “saving the environment”. The latest act of vandalism sees huge areas of our coastal waters being locked away in marine parks destroying the livelihood of many people dependent on what have operated for decades as a well manged and regulated fisheries.
But not to worry, this inept government will supply compensation to those impacted. And where will the money come from, why these inept fools will simply put more on the already maxed-out national credit card. This mob has been borrowing $100 million every single day since the GFC and still they continue with their profligacy. The election really can’t come too soon.
Hummm, it is not surprising what the green economy pulled forth with so much in the way of subsidies and very little regulation or true oversight of the huge investments made. It is surprising, however, that it has failed so miserably. Trying to micromanage climate is not for the faint of heart in the long run either…..time tells all truths in the end.
Funny how most green products are very much dependent upon Fossil fuels to be created, no ??
I work in one of the poorest areas on Earth in remote Indonesia, conducting mineral exploration and developing mining projects, and almost every week we have to deal with some or other green group who wants to stop every exploration and mining project they can, wherever it is, however it is, and whether the locals want it or not, and keeping the people and their nation poor, by doing so. In some cases, local NGO green groups are funded by western interests that are funded largely by oil (e.g. Norway) or mineral revenues (e.g Australia) which fund local green NGO groups who fanatically oppose mining and exploration; so in effect, western nations are using oil and mineral money to stop poor nations from developing their own oil and mineral resources. I couldn’t think of a better way to keep the imbalance between rich and poor nations, than by rich nations using resource money to stop poor nations from developing their own resources.
If the UN is about reducing poverty, then why doesn’t it also actively promote mining research and development, especially in the 3rd world, instead of indirectly hindering it by their fanatical promotion of ‘protecting the environment’, whilst leaving out legal development and research.
The west got out of poverty largely by developing its resources, including mining. The UN wants to reduce poverty, but at the same time it effectively hinders mining development in the 3rd world, because of its radical environmental agendas. If it is to follow its own ideals, then it must also have an active pro-mining agenda, in addition to its environmental agenda, the same as any nation does.
Some of the world’s largest mineral deposits were originally funded, and found by the UN, or by its initiatives. In the 1960s-1970s, for example, it supported a 3rd world research program into mineral exploration, and one of these initiatives found the Yanococha gold deposits in Peru, one of the largest gold resources in the world. Mining now makes up a large portion of Peru’s economy.
They don’t do this anymore of course, too busy trying to ‘reduce poverty’ by other methods that don’t work. They don’t come out and try and stop mining and mineral exploration directly of course, but their obsessive agenda of locking away every bit of land that’s not bolted down into conservation reserves which don’t allow mining, and their radical green agenda allows local green groups to radicalise and then attempt to stop every legal and properly regulated mining project they can, and in some cases they succeed. Many of the green groups that fanatically oppose mining projects are funded directly or indirectly by various ‘green’ initiatives, which typically morph into corrupt local power plays and vested political interests.
Areas of land that are rushed into various types of conservation reserve tenure to ‘save the planet’ (i.e transferred to the environment estate, often so western researchers can get funding into it) sometimes have to be reversed once it is found that some of these areas contain billions of dollars of minerals and energy resources. Often nobody bothered to ask mineral exploration scientists whether there was any mineral or energy potential there. This is particularly acute in the 3rd world, which hasn’t had the luxury of centuries of research and development into its mineral resources the same way the west has done. Some of these conservation reserves, many of which have no specific local or other value other than adding land to the international environmental estate, are locking local people into poverty. But the real damage is that areas locked away into conservation can’t even be explored or researched for minerals and energy anymore, meaning we will never know whether many of these lands contain resources which can lift people out of poverty in the first place.
In some cases local villagers are also forced off their land, or their living is severely disrupted by green agendas. In 2010 for example, in Indonesia, some locals refused to leave their villages when the nearby Merapi volcano was erupting, because any land that is not ‘occupied’ can be confiscated into the nearby National Park. This caused deaths, because some people did not want to leave their land in fear that is would be confiscated by local National Park officials, and some of these people died in the eruptions.
And often in the 3rd world, conservation land-transfers have to be reversed, at great cost. In some cases, it was found that areas rushed into National Parks for example where I work in Indonesia, contained already well-advanced mining projects worth billions of dollars, with already granted mining titles and rights; nobody bothered to actually check this when the National Park was declared. Some of these had to reversed, because the mining companies could rightfully claim compensation worth billions of dollars.
The UN is effectively hindering the reduction of poverty in the 3rd world by their radical environmental agenda, because at the same time they are ALSO not addressing how this agenda radicalises local green groups and how it effects various legal and locally beneficial developments, and in particular well-regulated exploration and mining. Indonesia is often stated to be one of the most under-explored and prospective nations for minerals on earth, and yet investors shy away from it because it is also so difficult, admittedly socially as well as environmentally, to explore there.
Mining and exploration also directly, and indirectly, funds some of the largest social and environmental programs in the developing world, but it doesn’t do it through radical environmental idealism, it does it largely through direct interaction and involvement with locals on the ground, the way it has always done.
Another case of the not-so-jolly-green-giant:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_h5DTV–cNLI/TK4hoUjihnI/AAAAAAAAKJY/HntcV2BJ_c8/s400/GreenGiant67rug.jpg
…or maybe…..?
http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTItIYJwOpzOjwKXRcb7eB_V074CJTnOI6rIuw87NqLlShUwVDW
@ Gail Combs, re: “Third way, etc. ”
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Thanks for the links. But I have a question: What do you suggest as the ‘cure’ for this ‘Communitarianism’ and it’s predecessors and cousins? How do we avoid a return to the past? It seems unlikely that a ballot box would be a sufficient prophylactic. The historical remedy involved a lot blood and guillotines. I don’t see that happening either – at least not successfully.
thingadonta says: June 15, 2012 at 6:37 pm
THIS is exactly what’s happening.
I too live in Indonesia, and see tracts of valuable land with timber, but more importantly, valuable mineral resources, locked up as National Parks, based on pressure and funding from green groups and foreign governments, and I am sure the basic underlying strategy which underlies all this is removing competition from the market. The green groups would get nowhere without strong financial and political backing. And I fear much of the enabling funding goes into individual pockets, and get’s nowhere near the regional people who would otherwise be enriched by exploitation of those reserves.
Brazil is probably an example f the pressure; under pressure, mainly from the USA to NOT develop their forests and grasslands (for the sake of the world) they trod their own path and have displaced the USA as the world’s largest exporter of corn soybean and beef.
These dreadful examples of bully boy tactics is typical of these left wing ‘greens’. The ‘greenie knows best’ attitude indicates a small minded mob in action. It is these knowitall idiots who are preventing the development of the third world which will help the environment far more than holding them back in the stone age.
tango says:
June 15, 2012 at 5:08 pm
Australian PM Gillard is attending the RIO+20 fraud and is giving a 90 min speach on how she will destroy Australia in the name of saving us from ourselves….
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Just for kicks I put in a search Australia, Gillard, and London School of Economics…
This popped up
Looks like he is five for five…
Think Tanks are the place where the ideas put in place by the politicians originate.
Gee, Fabian Society, London School of Economics, Oxford University and Deputy Chief of Staff to the Prime Minister of Australia, nope the Fabians have no influence over the Australian government… (/sarc)
Turnbull is The Opposition spokesman for communications, a real Spin Meister if he can convince us that China, who is building a coal plant a week, is a will take the global leadership on climate change. I think he forgot to mention that it is Western Tax Payers who are picking up the tab for all that “Climate Change” investment in China.
You will love this one:
“guarantees of energy security” for other countries while she is ripping apart the economic security of her own country, isn’t she a real sweetheart.
I also suggest reading this from a London School of Economics Analyst: Revolt in China only a matter of time: analyst
Bob in Castlemaine says:
June 15, 2012 at 6:17 pm
Under the current disastrous minority regime of the Gillard Government here in Australia Big Green is enjoying a free hand to trash our economy under the guise of “saving the environment”. The latest act of vandalism sees huge areas of our coastal waters being locked away in marine parks destroying the livelihood of many people dependent on what have operated for decades as a well manged and regulated fisheries.
But not to worry, this inept government will supply compensation to those impacted. And where will the money come from, why these inept fools will simply put more on the already maxed-out national credit card. This mob has been borrowing $100 million every single day since the GFC and still they continue with their profligacy. The election really can’t come too soon.
Bob, looks like you should read Gail Comb’s links on ‘the third way’ in this thread.
Its the same story in the USA where Federal Lands are expanding and taking over the areas where prospecting mining or drilling could take place.
The word for the rest of the year will be communitarianism
Taxpayers are not a renewable resources. They exist in limited supply. Any program that relies on taxpayers is ultimately not sustainable, unless it generates a net benefit to the taxpayer.
Governments recognize this and are always trying to find justification to explain why they want an every expanding slice of your paycheck. “Green” is simply another reason to stick their hand in your wallet. To help you by helping themselves, thank you very much.
Government debt is the modern equivalent of legalized slavery. A person born into debt already has their future earnings confiscated without their knowledge or approval.
Except in dire circumstances, governments should never run deficits. They should run surpluses and accumulate wealth, which through careful investment should generate revenues to pay for government operations, reducing and eventually eliminating the need for taxes.
Instead, governments run deficits and borrow from international bankers, who instead accumulate the wealth. The officials that make these decisions work hand in glove with the international bankers to promote this system and prevent the passage of laws that would eliminate deficit spending.
Gail Combs, Robin and the others who participated in the information exchange in this thread, many thanks to you.
Gail, your observation about ‘Hay Seeds’ and ‘Red Necks’ made my heart sing.
Questions were asked on how to end the drive to install global socialist governance. Few problems worth solving were ever successfully solved without understanding them thoroughly. It seems to me that one of the first steps to gaining that understanding would be to appreciate how far social evolution has systematically and deliberately deviated from the concern of the founding fathers of the U.S. to create a lasting republic based on individualism and property rights.
It may be worth your time to assess what Igor Shafarevich has to say about socialism as an all-pervasive ideology throughout history, in ‘The Socialist Phenomenon’; http://www.amazon.com/Socialist-Phenomenon-Igor-Schafrevich/dp/0895268779 (Regnery, 1982; out of print, but a version of the full text is accessible on-line, for free, at http://robertlstephens.com/essays/shafarevich/001SocialistPhenomenon.html )
Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn wrote the foreword to ‘The Socialist Phenomenon’, and that alone is worth reading: http://robertlstephens.com/essays/shafarevich/001SocialistPhenomenon.html#pagestart_vii
From that:
thingadonta says:
June 15, 2012 at 6:37 pm
I work in one of the poorest areas on Earth in remote Indonesia, conducting mineral exploration and developing mining projects, and almost every week we have to deal with some or other green group who wants to stop every exploration and mining project they can….
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As I mentioned above there seems to be a group of families interested in ruling the world. The last thing they are interested is allowing the “Great Unwashed” to use up the natural resources they want preserved for the use by THEIR descendants. They are very much FOR eugenics, population control, licenses to have babies…. They want to “cull the human herd” and restrict our use of Earth’s natural bounty. After all they do not NEED a lot of people to keep the world’s economy running and themselves in servants.
The target is the Middle Class who might actually rise in wealth and status to challenge our would be World Leaders if allowed a decent education and the oppurtunity to go into business for themselves. So we are condemned for “consuming” too much of the earth’s resources and restricted by regulations from reaching our potential. The third world poor are certainly not going to be allowed to join the wasteful “affluent middle class”
Obama’s Science Czar John Holdern his close colleagues Paul Ehrlich and Anne Ehrlich wrote textbooks in the 1970s. One of them was “EcoScience”
Direct quotes from Ecoscience (1977 )
Since Holdren’s textbook was written, the USDA has funded the development of a Spermicidal Corn. Epicyte developed the spermicidal GMO corn and has since been acquired by a privately owned Pittsboro North Carolina biotech company. link
Also since the book was written DNA samples are taken of babies born in hospitals without the parents permission.
USA:
UK: DNA database created from babies’ blood samples – Millions of newborn babies have had their DNA stored by hospitals without the proper consent of their parents, it has been revealed.
A really weird new bill in Australia (March 2912) Australian children to be sterilized without parental consent under new eugenics law…
Ireland An unforeseen side-effect of the national screening programme has been the creation of a de-facto national DNA database. Unknown to the Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) and most parents the hospital’s policy is to keep all blood samples on file indefinitely…. In Australia police regularly seek access to baby blood samples to get DNA profiles to aid investigations …
Given the USA was sterilizing Native Americans and others without their consent into the 1970’s I really doubt Eugenics has actually gone away. It has certainly been part of the United Nations.
More on Huxley
other Huxley link
Huxley was also a member of the Fabian Society and wrote papers for them: http://www.amazon.com/When-hostilities-cease-reconstruction-introduction/dp/B000L9MWEC
Any one who thinks the 2008 Food riots and the third world land grabs just “happened” by chance is Nuts. Here is a history of the planned destruction of US family farms since the 1940’s link
ferd berple says:
June 16, 2012 at 7:37 am
Government debt is the modern equivalent of legalized slavery. A person born into debt already has their future earnings confiscated without their knowledge or approval….
Instead, governments run deficits and borrow from international bankers, who instead accumulate the wealth. The officials that make these decisions work hand in glove with the international bankers to promote this system and prevent the passage of laws that would eliminate deficit spending.
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Yes it is legalized slavery. Worse the bankers do not lend our governments “WEALTH” instead they create fiat bank notes out of Unicorn Farts and then tell the tax payer we OWE them principle and interest that MUST be paid through our labor.
In other words the entire fractional reserve banking system is nothing but a quasi legalized FRAUD! When the USA had a “Banking Crisis” (too big to fail) in 2008 there actually was no real crisis because banks deal in about 95% profit when they make “Home loans” Actually since you have to pay points up front and place at least 10% down and the US banks are running on an effective zero reserve. It is more like a 99% profit. In other words the entire amount loaned is created on the spot. Since there is no actual “”Consideration” (“the thing exchanged”) which is an essential element of a contract, most bank loans are illegal and fraudulent contracts under US law but unfortunately the courts normally side with the bankers and not the people. SEE: Web of Debt: First National Bank of Montgomery vs. Daly (1969)
walterschneider says: @ June 16, 2012 at 8:16 am
……Questions were asked on how to end the drive to install global socialist governance. Few problems worth solving were ever successfully solved without understanding them thoroughly. It seems to me that one of the first steps to gaining that understanding would be to appreciate how far social evolution has systematically and deliberately deviated from the concern of the founding fathers of the U.S. to create a lasting republic based on individualism and property rights.
It may be worth your time to assess what Igor Shafarevich has to say about socialism as an all-pervasive ideology throughout history……
_________________________________
Thank you for the link, I will check it out.
I some times wonder if Marx was paid to come up with his socialist “philosophy”. Capitalism, as practiced in the early days of the USA and in the UK during the Industrial Revolution was a threat to the established rulers of the world , and the international banking families because a man of industry and intelligence could “rise above his station.”
Much of the history of the USA is a story of the nation trying to get out from under the thumb of the bankers.
The situation is very tangled but if you look you see the international banking families in the background. For example. Since the 1997 general election there have been around 200 Fabian MPs in the Commons, amongst whom number nearly the entire Cabinet, including Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Robin Cook, Jack Straw, David Blunkett and Clare Short.[1] and JP Morgan, the US investment bank which pays Mr Blair £2 million a year as a senior adviser
The school started by the Fabians, the London School of Economics. is worth looking into. WIKI
Also Caroll Quigley, Milner Round tables, Rhodes Scholars administered by the Rothschild’s link
Not only do the banks create money out of debt when someone goes to them for a loan, they can factor by ten and lend that out or create pyramid schemes by passing it on to other banks and of course, play real world monopoly with it by organising booms and busts to buy out the bankrupt owner’s property for peanuts.
There’s nothing wrong with ‘fiat’ money, before that the bankers used gold to corner the wealth of the world and in the US it produced the great land grab from the bankrupt farmers, when the bankers from the East took control – Wizard of Oz and all that. Gold itself a limited commodity so no good for expanding real trade and commerce, but even they couldn’t get enough of it and had to juggle it around, when taken off the gold standard around 40% of the notes were backed by actual gold, but only from the great theft from the US citizens. Gold is not the answer, it’s the same old problem.
Still, what has to recogonised is that whatever currency is used, it’s giving bankers control of it which does the damage. Get back to producing your own greenbacks, your old colonial scrip..
http://www.iamthewitness.com/books/Andrew.Carrington.Hitchcock/The.History.of.the.Money.Changers.htm
The 1913 100 year charter Ends this year – Don’t renew it..
..and ignore any schemes they might have in the pipe-line to distract you from this..
Gail Combs now you know what we are up against listen to sydneys 2GB radio in the morning 6am to 9am listen to Allan Jones and you will here all about our PM and how she is destroying australia with the carbon tax starting 07/01/2012 at $23 a ton the greens are behind this FRAUD we are marching on the 07/01/2012 we hate our GOVT
Hmm… It scares me a bit to consider how someone like Obama could solve the federal debt problem by controlling how many greenbacks are being put into circulation — without authorization by anyone else.
🙂 Yeah, but you’ll have to work out a proper system of checks and balances, the US Republic was not set up to be a totalitarian or democratic dictatorship … The power is vested in the people, not the government.
You still have a few months to create a sensible alternative before they distract and get their charter renewed.
One alternative suggested is the goverment gets out of currency control altogether, any exchange agreed between parties could be used and the government could just print the notes required for a general conversion as needed by the expansion of manufacturing and trade.
How does congress get a free ride on insider trading?